Finding a pleasant life

It's important that you find a way to live a pleasant life. And in the best case, support other people that they also find the same. This is what it's about. The main idea is your suffering won't stop if you don't find a way of reducing the suffering of your surroundings.  

Long ago, I was very depressed for an extended period of time and someone explained to me that happy and sad emotions are like flip-sides of a coin. Imagine if you will, happy is heads on a coin; sad is tails. When we experience long durations of depression, it's as if the coin was tossed and it landed on tails. We are so bogged down in sadness, despair and hopelessness, that we cannot emotionally flip the coin over to see that happiness is on the other side. We then just think, we will be sad forever. The feelings of happiness and sadness are impermanent. However, inner peace is sustainable. 

Imagine if you will, the best thing to do is to stand the coin on its side and stand on the top of the side of the coin. Now I can see both the head's and tail's side of the coin. This is an optimal position to be in emotionally. It's neutral. 

Through inner peace, I can find the balance in my life to stay in this neutral zone. I can see happiness and sadness and experience them when they arise. But for the majority of the time,  I can just straddle the coin of emotions making sure it does fall on heads or tails of long durations of time.  This is how to have balance and perspective on controlling my emotions. 

Doing daily inner peace practices sustains the balance of my emotions. If I should get a little depressed or experience moments of great joy and elation, I know it will not last forever. Just experience it, appreciate it. Then go back to neutral. 

If you would like to share how this might have helped you, please write to me in the comment box below.